Michael Jensen's Blog, page 4

Lessons From a Book Launch

So Man & Beast, my first novel in nearly fifteen years, came out last month and I thought it would be helpful if I shared my experiences launching it. We Indie authors have to stick together after all and I’ve always appreciated when other authors shared their experiences about what worked and didn’t work for them. Be warned, this is a rather lengthy post and while some aspects apply only to my situation, I still hope some of my experiences might be helpful.

Strategy: Now that I’ve restarted my writing career, I’m playing a very long game. And by that, I mean what I’m doing with Man & Beast and Man & Monster (just out now), is really all about launching my Drowning World series, which comes out later this year. In other words, while I do want M&B and M&M to sell well, both books are really tools I’m using to build a bigger platform to launch the new series. This strategy isn’t unique to me, of course; most every writer uses each new book to build a bigger audience and launch platform for their next book. What’s unique to me is that I had two previously published novels that I was able to re-title, update, and give new covers.

The first decision I had to make was whether to go wide or to go exclusively through Amazon. I could write a lengthy post about that entire decision, but after doing a lot of research, I decided to go with Amazon, specifically so I could be part of Kindle Unlimited (their reader subscription service) and take advantage of the promotional tools that offered. I set my initial price at $.99 for a variety of reasons. Doing that allowed me to take advantage of the many services that promote $.99/free books and would, I hoped, help with the mysterious Amazon algorithms.

My marketing included Amazon ads, boosting Facebook posts, the previously mentioned promo services, as well as reviews and a few posts on book blogs, newsletter swaps, and giving away Man & Beast via the Big Gay Fiction Giveaway (85 M/M writers joined together to giveaway copies of their books via Instafreebie). What I couldn’t do, since I basically had no email list, was use use my own newsletter to promote my book.

Results: As of January 3rd, I’ve given away nearly 2,000 copies of Man & Beast, sold another 300 copies, and had 44,000 page reads via Kindle Unlimited (authors get paid for every page that gets read) for a total of $361.11.

My costs were $500 for the book cover, $12 for the banner for my website, and roughly $150 for Facebook and Amazon ads, as well as promo with RobinReads, BookHounds, EbookBetty, and others. So at the moment I’m operating at a loss of $300.89.

But I’m totally cool with that. Like I said, I’m in it for the long haul. Would I have liked the book to have done better? Well, duh!

Perhaps you’re thinking it didn’t do better because it isn’t a very good book. Always a possibility, but readers and reviewers do seem to like it. Right now Man & Beast is rated 4.5 stars with 24 reviews on Amazon and 4.11 stars with 68 reviews on Goodreads. So I don’t think I wrote a stinker.

Takeaway: So what worked and what didn’t? That’s obviously a bit tricky to tease out as I don’t have a test case to compare with. But here is my take.

Didn’t work: $.99/free promo sites are mostly be a bust for M/M books IMHO. (BookBub is a different story. I haven’t done them yet, but definitely plan on it.) The best results I got were with EbookBetty and a gay specific service, Rainbow Shelf. Both days I had promos running there, I sold 25 books. There is a caveat with EbookBetty as I also had a Facebook ad running that day, but since FB ad never seemed to work on any other day, I think the credit has to go to EBB. The cost for EBB was $18, so at $.99 a book, so I lost money, but I expected that. Ironically, Rainbow Shelf currently isn’t charging, so they were a steal. The biggest problem I found with the $.99/free promo sites was that almost none of them had specifically gay lists (unlike BookBub) and several of them wouldn’t even take a M/M book. Consequently, very few of their readers were interested in gay books. There is a new service launching this month, LGBT Romance Deals that will specifically be promoting M/M romance. I’ll be giving them a try.
Didn’t work: Facebook and Amazon ads don’t appear to work. I got very little traction with either, despite trying different keywords and different ads. Here I have to note that Man & Beast isn’t your typical M/M book. I cross genres — historical, romance, thriller/horror — so it’s possible that readers saw my ads and decided it wasn’t for them.
Didn’t work: Newsletter swaps where other authors promote you in their newsletters; in return, you do the same for them. I did several of these and none seemed to sell many copies.
Worked: The Big Gay Fiction Giveaway. Before I came up with the idea for the BGFG, I had fifty-five people subscribed to my newsletter. Afterward, it was over 1,500. A number of those readers have posted reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and ordered Man & Monster. So the giveaway was a huge win that I’ll definitely be repeating.
Worked: In general, getting coverage for M/M books is definitely an uphill struggle. So thank heavens for M/M review sites like DiverseReader, SinfullyGayRomance, and MyFictionNook who actually review and post about LGBT books. And other M/M authors have been very helpful in promoting Man & Beast. Networking with fellow authors is crucial!

What I’ll Do Different Next Time:

Newsletter promotion. Thanks to the Big Gay Fiction Giveaway, I’ve now got an email newsletter list that I’ll be able to use to promote Man & Monster. (And I’ve got a whole strategy about how I’m going to use that email list, which I’ll discuss in another post.) Hopefully, that will make a big difference.
$.99/free promo sites. Initially, I won’t be doing any of these. Mostly because they didn’t work and because I’m pricing M&M at $4.99. A little farther down the road, I will be doing a BookBub for Man & Beast to help spur sales of both books. I’ll also use the Countdown Daily Deal, which is available to author’s enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and let’s authors promote their book at a lower price for a set period of time.
Guest blog posts. I’m doing more guest blog posts, interviews and excerpts. This seems to be the best way to reach potential readers.


I won’t be doing any FB ads, except for boosting my initial “Hey, my new book is for sale!” post.
Newsletter swaps. This time around I’ll be looking for books that are less romance and more genre, such as paranormal, science fiction, and, of course, historical.

So there you have it! Stay tuned for an update on how the launch for Man & Monster goes.

 

 

 

 

Good Sex and How To Write It. (Hint: It’s Not All About Showing Everything)

No, I said, good sex and how to write it. Not have it. If you’re looking for that kind of information, go check out Dan Savage. This post is going to discuss how I use sex in my writing, followed by an example from Man & Beast, my latest novel.

Writing a great sex scene is easy, right? Just describe all the right parts and use lots of active verbs like throbbing, thrusting, plus some metaphors describing hot members and voila! Awesome sex scene!

Yeah, no.

Personally, I don’t think any kind of writing is easy, but I’d say writing good sex is especially tricky precisely because there are so many pitfalls. Purple prose, extra clunky metaphors, overheated dialogue, too much detail like, “His blue-steel hard member pulsed like a battleship’s cannon, pumping volley after volley into his longing mouth with lips swollen like the cherries ripe for picking on a hot July day as steamy as the air enfolding their throbbing bodies.”

Bleah.

So how does one write good sex? It’s a lot like having good sex — it takes time, thought, and practice to learn how to do it right.

Here are my rules for writing a good sex scene.

1) The sex should mean something. I’m not saying it has to mean the characters are in love and declare their undying devotion to each other. But the sex should exist to communicate something about the characters and the plot of your book. Otherwise, it’s really just porn and you might as well have the hot deliveryman showing up at the door in the super tight pants.

I think a good sex scene should reveal something about your characters. For instance, rough sex could tell the reader that your characters are sexually attracted to each, but don’t want to be. They can’t keep their hands off of each other, something that pisses them off mightily, and it shows up in how they treat each other. Man & Beast has something a lot like this. It’s intense, but I think it’s also erotic as hell because it arouses the reader, but keeps them on edge as to just what it going to happen.

Another example could be furtive sex in a back alley showing how a character is ambivalent about their sexual desires, while spontaneous sex with a stranger could show your hero is impetuous or has bad judgment or just a really high sex drive he can’t control.

In each of these examples, the sex can and should be very hot, but hot for a reason, not just to titillate the reader. When sex illustrates character, we care more about the sex AND the character.

2) A fresh setting and situations can lead to more interesting sex. Coming up with fresh sex scenes for Man & Beast wasn’t terribly difficult in part because it has a pretty different location than most MM books: the American frontier in 1797.

That alone automatically created a lot of opportunities for me to create fresher sex scenes. Like deep in the wilderness in a remote blockhouse where the two main characters are wintering over together; on top of a rocky promontory under the stars; after my main character has learned how to butcher a moose. That last one doesn’t sound erotic, but trust me, that situation leads to a very erotic scene.

3) Fading to black can be pretty erotic. Some of the best sex scenes I’ve ever read show everything leading up to the actual sex — the first encounter, the seduction, even the foreplay — then fade to black at just the right moment, leaving some of what happens up to the reader’s imagination. Just like with horror, where a good writer or director might not actually show you the monster, a good sex scene can show everything right up to the climax (so to speak), then exit stage right. And that can be pretty powerful.

4) Don’t share every gory detail or pile on the cliches. Many new writers often think for a sex scene to be great, it has to show everything. In great detail. Repeatedly.

Listen, we’ve all got the same equipment and we (mostly) know how it works. The physical sensations that come with intercourse and so forth are pretty universal and a few details here and there are often enough to let the reader know what your characters are physically doing with each other. So instead of describing what it feels like, try describing how it makes the character feel. That’s often more interesting, more intense, and more erotic than endless descriptions of the physical act.

And really keep an eye out for the cliches. Rock hard abs, toe curling climaxes, and the previously mentioned throbbing members are boring.

5) Practice, practice, practice. Just like with having actual good sex, writing a good sex scene takes a lot of time and effort. Don’t feel bad if your first sex scenes remind you of the first time you had sex, what with all of the fumbling, confusion, and putting things in the wrong places. Over time, you’ll get better if you work at it. And just like working at getting better at sex can be a ton of fun, so can writing good sex scenes!

6) If it doesn’t turn you on, it probably won’t turn on the reader. This is true of any kind of writing you might do, but if you write a sex scene and find yourself yawning instead of reaching for your significant other (or Grindr, Tinder, etc.) then you’re probably doing something wrong. I’m not saying you should find yourself aroused during the copy-edit, but if at some point during the writing process your sex scene doesn’t at least turn you on a bit, you can bet it won’t your reader!

Now here is an excerpt from Man & Beast that hopefully puts these rules into action!

“I thought you were dead,” I said emotionlessly. “When you vanished, I thought that God must truly hate us.”

“Please forgive me.”

“You’re peeved with me, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re mad because I won’t ask you to stay with me. Why else would you make me think you’re dead?”

“I swear that isn’t true. Here.” He handed me a flask. “This will steady you.”

I took the flask, my hand trembling. “Maybe you’ve a right to be mad.” Cold whiskey burned my throat. I shivered. “I don’t know what to do. I never have. Running away was always the best I could manage.”

He ignored my lament. “You’re cold, aren’t you? Come here then. I’ll warm you up.”

I considered for a long moment, then went to his side. Silent, we sat facing east, our backs propped against a cold slab of granite, the blanket held tight around us. Vigorously he massaged my fingers and arms and legs.

Surprising myself, I pulled Palmer close. All I knew for certain was that I wanted to be with him, deny it as I might. We kissed softly once, then a second time. He was tender as he ran his fingers across my face. My lips gently brushed over his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth.

We kissed again. I slipped my tongue into his mouth, he leaned forward, kissing me eagerly. A glowing warmth spread throughout my body. At least it did until a pain shot through my groin.

“Ow!” I hollered, catching sight of Palmer’s hand in my crotch. “What are doing?” I said, then realized he’d been trying to fondle my balls.

“I’m sorry. Shit. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You’re just a little too eager, that’s all,” I said, gingerly massaging myself.

Maybe Palmer wasn’t as knowledgeable about everything as I’d assumed.

“You’ve never been with a man before, have you?” I said uncomfortably. I’d never before openly discussed the subject with anyone. Doing so felt fraught with danger.

“No, but if you reckon that means I’m not old enough to know what I want, you’re wrong And if you try and—”

“I’m not your father or Caleb. Don’t attack me.”

He let out a sigh that seemed to carry away some of his anger. “Sorry.”

“Let’s try the kissing again. But for now, keep your hands above my waist.”

I slid my hand behind his neck, pulling him to me. An unbidden image of Zach forced itself upon me, but I focused my mind and told myself that was then and this was now. Palmer watched me intently, but in his face I only saw gentleness and patience and, sadly, a little fear.

First I kissed him on the forehead, his cheeks, and then several times on the lips. I felt him trembling.

“That was nice,” he said when I stopped.

“How’s this?” I said, again slipping my tongue into his mouth.

He shivered, then pressed his mouth back even harder against mine. His tongue, frenetic and eager, explored my mouth so roughly that I fell backward.

“Sorry.”

“No, no,” I said, breathless. “That was fine. Do you want to keep going?”

He nodded eagerly. I reached over and unbuttoned his shirt while he unbuttoned mine. In moments we were naked, each taking the other in. Finally, we lay down on the blanket, our hands exploring every nook and cranny of our bodies, our mouths tasting and savoring each other, our skin growing slick as we took our pleasure with each other deep into the night.

Despite everything, it felt right and pure.

It felt like forgiveness.

Man & Beast is Launched!

It’s hard to believe it’s been twelve years since I last released a novel, but them’s the facts! Regardless, Man & Beast is officially out in the world and so far it’s going pretty darn well.

The Novel Approach reviewed it and said, “Author Michael Jensen has melded factual research with fiction to create an eerily shocking mystery. For the time period, there is much hardship, fear and bigotry, and people have to keep their secrets hidden. This was a first time read for me from this author, and I was totally entertained by the twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. This was an excellent read.”

Diverse Reader wrote, “The best thing about this book was that it’s absolutely memorable. I was thinking about it long after I finished. I’m looking forward to more of this series.”

And Gay Book Reviews did a wonderfully detailed review that even comes with awesome pictures.

As of this moment, readers on Amazon rate Man & Beast four and a half stars, while Goodreads has it at … 4.5 stars!

Thanks to everyone who has read and posted reviews. They are huge to the success of a book and very much appreciated!

It’s Raining Books! Halleleujah!

So by  now you’re probably bloated with turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and pie, and maybe you’re thinking that tomorrow you should get out and do some of that Black Friday Christmas shopping, right?

HELL, NO! That sounds awful! Literally, hell on earth!

Personally, I think you should stay right there surfing on your couch and head over to the Big Gay Giveaway where more than 80 authors of M/M fiction are giving away their books, novellas, and short stories FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE! We’ve got sexy, historical novels, paranormal stories, romance, science fiction, and more. To get the free book of your heart’s desire, peruse the 80 or so covers, click on one you like, then enter your email to sign up for that author’s newsletter so you can learn even more about them, then voila! You have a free book in your inbox.

IT’S JUST LIKE MAGIC!

So go get that extra piece of pie — oh hell, take the whole thing — climb back up on the couch and download, download, download!

Why Indigenous People’s Day Instead of Columbus Day?

In most of the United States, Monday was Columbus Day, celebrating the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the new world. But in Seattle (where I live) and in a growing number of places around the U.S., Columbus Day is being replaced with Indigenous People’s Day.

It’s about fricking time.

Why, you might ask? After all, Columbus did sail across the Atlantic (no easy feat 500 years ago) and discovered the New World. Isn’t that worth celebrating? Why do I have to be so “politically correct” and call it something else?

Leaving aside the question of how you can “discover” a world already filled with tens of millions of people, the idea of celebrating the man who brought death and disease to millions of American Indians always seemed pretty reprehensible to me. Sure, most Americans are vaguely aware that we brought some diseases and took a lot of land from the people who were living here first (talk about illegal immigration). But for 99% of us, we are profoundly ignorant of our own country’s past actions and we’ve never actually faced the devastation our presence has wrought, either in the past or how it still impacts millions of American Indians today. (Canada is showing us what we should be doing.)

That’s one of the reasons my first two books — Man & Beast and Man & Monster — have included American Indian characters as well as trying to do some education about what sort of devastation the colonization of the Americas caused and is still causing.

In Man & Beast, Gwennie, a Delaware Indian woman recounts the Gnadenhutten Massacre, the slaughter in 1792 of nearly a hundred Christian Indians. That’s right, they were Christian and they still got massacred as payback for something done by an entirely different group of American Indians (who were fighting to keep their land).

Odds are you’ve never heard of Gnadenhutten. Why would you? American history textbooks have long glossed over atrocities like this, or have only touched on them very briefly. Pretty much like every other atrocity committed by the people we celebrate as having brought about Manifest Destiny.

I’d argue this isn’t being politically correct. It’s just being correct.

And it is why we need Indigenous People’s Day.

Man & Beast: Chapter One — A Sexy, Gay Twist on American History

It’s still a little while until Man & Beast comes out, but you don’t have to wait that long to read the exciting first chapter! Just follow this link and you can get a sneak preview of the adventures of John Chapman and what happens  when he stumbles upon a cabin deep in the American wilderness where the sole resident is the mysterious, sexy frontiersman Daniel McQuay.

And if you like what you read, you can either pre-order it on Amazon or you can get it free by signing up for my newsletter by clicking here. (I promise you won’t hear from more than five or six times a year!)

Why Historical Gay Fiction?

Did you know a gay man helped George Washington win the American Revolution? (His Name was Baron von Steuben and was German!) Did you know that President James Buchanan was almost certainly gay? How about Leonardo da Vinci, Richard the Lionhearted, or Eleanor Roosevelt?

The answer is almost certainly “no.”

That is why I write gay historical fiction.

I can’t claim I set out with some kind of noble desire to set the record straight, so to speak. But as someone who loves books and words and history, and as someone determined to make the world a better place for the LGBT community, I guess it wasn’t entirely surprising that my books would turn out to have queer content.

The inspiration for Man & Beast came about when I happened to catch an episode of a kid’s show about Johnny Appleseed. Did you know Johnny Appleseed was a real person? His name was John Chapman and he actually led a pretty fascinating existence.

The episode of the kid’s show purported to explain how John Chapman came to be Johnny Appleseed and according to the episode, it largely had to do with John’s feelings for a woman. I’m not sure how I knew this, but somewhere along the line I’d heard John had been a lifelong bachelor.

Intrigued, I started doing research. Sure enough, in all of the documentation of John Chapman’s life there was nothing about him ever being involved with a woman.

He did, however, spend a lot of time on the frontier in the company of men.

And that got me to thinking: Why would a relatively well-educated, soft-spoken man with a fondness for animals leave his home in Massachusetts and head out west for the wilds of the American frontier?

Perhaps he had something to hide. Perhaps, like many gay men once had to do, John Chapman went as far away as he could so he could live the life that he wanted.

And Man & Beast was born.

I’ve no definitive proof John Chapman was gay. And there is no proof that he wasn’t.

But I think I’m probably closer to the truth than that kid’s show was. And while it might seem like a silly issue, I think in a society that still pinkwashes its past, setting the record “gay” is something to aspire to.

Don’t worry though, my books aren’t history lessons. They’re sexy as hell, exciting, and filled with characters that I think you’ll fall in love with!

Interested in reading Man & Beast or Man & Monster? Head over here and here!

Hold on! Johnny Appleseed Was Gay?

Sharp-eyed readers of Man & Beast might recognize that the book’s hero, John Chapman, is based on an actual historical figure that we rather condescending refer to today as Johnny Appleseed. While I can’t prove John Chapman was gay, no one can prove he wasn’t either. And I think my reading of the few facts that we do know about John Chapman is as good as anyone else’s.

What specifically makes me think the relatively well-educated, soft spoken John Chapman might have been gay? For starters, John was never married and the historical record doesn’t indicate him ever having had any kind of romantic relationship with a woman. There isn’t evidence of one with a man either, but then again, plenty of historical figures have had had their romantic lives pinkwashed to make them more palatable for American consumption. (And I’m sure he was just as sexy as the guy in the picture!)

In addition to Chapman having been well educated for the time, history shows him as having been a very gentle, soft-spoken man with a fondness for animals. And there has to be some reason he left the relative comforts of Massachusetts for the wilds of the American frontier. It sure wasn’t for the fine frontier dining. (See: Calipash. Yuck, just yuck.)

It seemed to me a pretty strong possibility that John’s homosexuality might have pushed him to head west. After all, with settlers busy trying to hack a living out of the wilderness, they were a lot less likely to have time to pay attention to what their neighbors did. Or to much care if they did.

Plus there were men on the frontier. A lot of men. Hunky men. (Well, I’m assuming that was true…) It isn’t hard to imagine a man with same-sex attractions finding opportunities for relationships that he wouldn’t find at home.

No doubt the American Family Association would disagree with me.

Why Did You Update, Rename, and Re-release Your Books?

Whoa, there is a lot in that question, so let’s unpack it, shall we?

I re-released Man & Beast (formerly Frontiers) and Man & Monster (formerly Firelands) for several reasons. First, because I got the rights back to them and there had never been an ebook version of either. And even though it’s been a long time since both came out, I still get people asking about getting copies of both Frontiers and Firelands.

Given the people what they want, right?

And re-releasing the books let me fix some things I didn’t like about how they originally turned out. It’s not often we get a do-over, is it? I was never crazy about the cover for either book. Simon & Schuster actually commissioned a painter to do the cover for Frontiers and it does look beautiful in some respects. It also looks kind of cheesy to me. As for Firelands, let’s just saw Alyson didn’t have a lot of dough to spend on the cover. And not to brag, but I think the new covers turned out pretty awesome.

As for the rewriting, there isn’t that much in either actually. I tweaked John Chapman’s character in Frontiers (he plays a smaller part in Firelands; the two books are standalones and you don’t have to read them in order). Upon rereading the book all these years later, I found him a little … whiny. I also cleaned up a couple of loose plot threads, tweaked a few things here and there and “Voila!” an updated book ready for the digital age!

Firelands has undergone slightly more renovations. In the original version, a rather prominent character comes to an untimely end. And a lot of readers hated that. At the time, I stood by my decision to off the character. I viewed it as essential to another character’s story arc.

Over time, however, I came to regret it. Novels, television shows, and movies are littered with dead LGBT characters. And I hated the idea that I had contributed to that, even if for a good reason.

So when I had the chance to fix that, I jumped at it. And I think it works just as well. (I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil things if you haven’t read it already.

But why the new titles?

I wanted a fresh start and I had the idea for a series built around the characters. Look for Man & Demon after I’ve finished writing The Drowning World series!

Interested in reading Man & Beast or Man & Monster? Head over here and here!

No More Ugly Villains!

What’s the first thing you think when an albino character appears in a movie? I bet it’s “Ew, what a creep! He’s got to be a villain!” And you’d usually be right. From Harry Potter’s Voldemort to the killer twins in The Matrix to The DaVinci Code’s psycho killer, albinism has been used as a way to make a villain seem especially wicked by making them even more “other” and frightening.

It’s not just albinism that is used this way, of course. Anything that deviates from what society considers to be the “norm” or “attractive” has been used to make fictional characters extra creepy. Obesity, homosexuality, excessive height, dwarfism, or any other disability or deformity have all been used as a way to say “Be really afraid of this character!”

Enough already! Physical unattractiveness does not equal evil and beauty does not equal good despite what Lord of the Rings would have us believe. (Almost everything in Mordor is incredibly ugly and usually dark-skinned, which touches on the whole issue of racism in LOTR. Yeah, yeah, J.R.R. Tolkien was a creature of his time, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss it today.)

It’s not just movies that do this, of course. Television, theater, and, of course, books have all relied on this visual shortcut to communicate a villain’s malformed character.

Am I saying that people with albinism can’t be villains? Of course not. But I would ask the question, how come they are almost never the good guys, much less the actual hero? (Tyrion on Game of Thrones is a noteworthy character for little people for a good reason. He might not be a hero exactly, but he’s a complicated character and a fan favorite as opposed to comic relief or the embodiment of evil that people love to hate that, which is the usual fate for people who aren’t “normal.”)

The problem isn’t just that writers use albinism and homosexuality as a way to make their characters distinctive. The problem is that these traits are almost never used to make the heroes more distinctive. Imagine if Indiana Jones had been an albino or Captain Kirk was an effeminate gay man or one of the wizards in Lord of the Rings had been a black man (and some of the orcs white!).

The fact that all of those ideas seem so laughable just proves how marginalized those two groups of people still are. And how far we still we have to go.

I recently watched Snowpiercer starring Chris Evans. While Chris was rather scruffy, he was still smoking hot because, well, he’s Chris Evans. Of course he was also the movie’s hero (if a reluctant one). Meanwhile, the oddest looking person was Tilda Swinton’s character who had buckteeth and a huge nose. Can you guess if she was good or bad? She was bad, naturally. Very, very bad, which probably made it easier for the writer/director to communicate her inherent immorality.

Yes, yes, I know that when it comes to art, and especially movies, most people like to watch or read about good-looking people. Which means the protagonists are almost always incredibly handsome or beautiful. But I think in 2014 it’s wrong for artists to fall back on the tired old tropes that beauty equals good and evil equals bad. I want to be better than that and I promise you that I’ll never have an albino villain in any of my books.